Suzume determines east was the correct direction to head, so she heads east. The main problem, of course, is that directly east of here is the waterfront, and unless the abomination swam away it couldn’t have continued in that direction. It might have gone north or south once it reached this point, but without another clue, all she knows is it really shot off after she said words in its own language.

Kasumi seeks out Mio to spend lunch with her. They have a good conversation, and Kasumi ends up feeling better about the recent and disheartening events in her life. (Add 1 extra charge to the relationship.)

For my next Move, I am going to go home to my family for tea ceremony lessons and then skip out and wander about to Bond with someone who wants to meet me. One of you guys who hasn’t met Izumi yet should volunteer! I’ll come up with some contrivance.

Nakano Izumi is visiting a sick relative (great-uncle Touha Ichiro) at the hospital when she ducks out of the patient visitation room to escape. While trying to hide from her overbearing mother, she runs into Ueda Kasumi who is volunteering after school. Kasumi helps Izumi hide in an empty room and faces down the condescending matron. Kasumi invites the thankful Izumi up to the hospital’s rooftop garden, where they discuss their first days of school.

They quickly realize that bizarre events have plagued both of them recently, with the mysterious Ireko being the common link. They each grapple with the realization that they will soon have to make a decision about whether or not to become a magical girl. And if they do, out of all the things in the world, what will they wish for? As the sun sets they exchange contact information and part ways, feeling they will soon meet again.

It’s the second day now since my strange experience with the radio and that one drunk man at the park, and I’ve decided to talk to Izumi-san about them since keeping so quiet about things hasn’t exactly been healthy for my ability to remain calm or concentrate on my everyday life, as such, I’ll be heading to her house today under the pretext of helping her study.

(3:39:51 AM) CC: The neighborhood is very nice. Each home stands separate from the others, and some even have small yards complete with elegant landscaping. The air smells of ivy and cut grass. The buildings are each a facade of modesty, obviously wealthy but well-bred occupants who know not to flaunt it in some gaudy display.
(3:40:30 AM) MaggotMaster: I’m walking out of school alone, it’s been a relatively uneventful day and I’ve mostly remained quiet for the majority of it, which thankfully is not particularly uncommon of me and thus has not called the attention of many people, albeit my mother might have suspected something earlier. She’s too preocuppied with her own problems however to bother me and while I too am worried about her, recent events have occupied most of my time. I am heading to Izumi-san’s home, I promised I’d help her study some of the contents passed in class, though in reality I’m more interested in conversing about what’s been happening to me lately. I continue walking in the direction of her home, to a neighboorhood much nicer than my own, but relatively modest for the class of people living in it.
(3:42:25 AM) CC: Izumi’s house is quite far from the subway. Unlike its neighbors it seems to be slightly older, but the maintenance is well done. There is a sense of sparseness about it, but all appearances are maintained. A short brick wall and an iron gate enclose the small front yard. It is unlocked.
(3:44:19 AM) MaggotMaster: I arrive to Izumi’s house, quickly noticing the unlocked gate. I imagine Izumi left it that way knowing I’d be here soon, so I open it and walk towards the front door, knocking on it to inform her I’ve arrived.
(3:47:19 AM) CC: Hurried footsteps sound from inside the house. Without much delay the door cracks open, and then is suddenly flung wide. “Zaragoza-san!” I stand in the doorway, still dressed in my school uniform. I compose myself and invite you inside. “Would you like some tea?” The smell of a brewing pot wafts through the entryway. “I’ll bring it upstairs. Please, make yourself at home. No one else is here right now.”
(3:50:08 AM) MaggotMaster: “Yeah, I’d like some tea, Izumi-san”. I take off my shoes at the entrance, a custom that, as my mother has noted repeatedly to me, is entirely japanese in nature. Izumi-san is one of the few people around whom I can feel somewhat at ease, which is a bit ironic given how different our backgrounds are. I find the nearest place to sit and lay in it to rest a bit. “How have you been doing, Izumi-san?” I ask.
(3:53:40 AM) CC: I return from the kitchen, a cup of steaming tea in each hand. “Very well, thank you. I’m excited to be back at school. I’ve already met a few new friends and the year has only just started.” I pause for a moment as I set down the cups on a glass coffee table in front of Esmerelda. “Although if I was the superstituous sort of person I would say that this schoolyear has been preceded by some strange omens. Fortunately, I’m not!”
(3:56:48 AM) MaggotMaster: “Strange omens?!” I immediately respond. Could this be a coincidence? I’m already feeling a bit nervous about the possibility of there being a greater significance for the strange events I’ve been through. I rapidly correct myself, trying to deliver my question in a softer manner “I, uh, well, yes, I’m very glad that the school year has been going great for you. Could you tell me about these strange omens however?”
(4:01:26 AM) CC: The cup clinks against the glass as I set it down. For a few moments I don’t say anything. “Well, not so much omens as events that you could take as such. Maybe you’ve heard about that girl in 2-C who went crazy and tried to strangle someone? I heard she’d been under a lot of stress at home, but someone from that class said she was so strong the glass of the window was cracked! That’s pretty strange, wouldn’t you agree?”
(4:02:31 AM) CC: Oddly I don’t appear especially disturbed as I tell the story. It sounds more like a matter of fact than fanciful gossip.
(4:07:16 AM) MaggotMaster: “Hm.” I mutter. “Yes, that’s pretty strange.” I decide that its better I tell Izumi-san about recent events right now rather than delay it. “Some rather weird things have happened to me lately, too.” I stare at Izumi directly in the eyes as I continue “Now, you know pretty well I’m more or less the exact opposite of supertituous, but I went around school checking if there was any possibility of what’s been happening being a prank and it seems that’s not the case. Would you like to hear about them? I mean, sorry, I’m supposed to help you study” I let a small, slightly nervous laugh out before continuing “but I think you might be, I don’t know, interested in hearing about this?”
(4:10:11 AM) CC: “I would. I… think this might be more important than trigonometry for now…” I say slowly. “Something happened to me too, but I’ve only told one person. You can tell me anything, I’ll believe you, Zaragoza-san.”
(4:20:39 AM) MaggotMaster: “Something happened to you?” I ask her blunty. “Oh, you can tell me later if you want, hold on a second, I’m trying to think of how to sum things up for you”, my mind hurries to try to put together a coherent tale out of the recent events, trying to build a narrative out of them that appropiately conveys how strange they were. "Okay, you know how I keep an old walkman in my home, and I use it to listen to some music tapes my mother owns aswell as the radio? The other day, or rather, two days ago, I was listening to it, paying attention to the news, when I started noticing some very strange patterns in the speech of the presenters, now I know this is the kind of thing conspiracy nuts do, but I switched to a different program, I think it was a talk show, to see if the pattern continued when I heard the presenter refer directly to “what to do if your mother gets fired of the grocery shop”." I stop for a second to catch my breath "Now, you know this is something that happened to me recently, my mother being fired from her job… and then, during the commercials I heard the words “The future is calling”! With this I was able to finally understand the strange pattern I had noticed in the previous program… I was, I don’t know how, I think its the time I’ve had the most clarity ever, I could come up with the words, “Ireko Is Calling.” I catch my breath again, at this point I’m simply trying to get as much information out as possible, even if it makes it seem like I’m insane "Later that day, or rather, immediately after I went outside, and at the park a salaryman, very clearly drunk approached me, he said “Ireko is calling”, too, and something akin to “This world is a cipher that only you can break.” I stop for a second, trying to get a good look at Izumi’s reaction, before finishing “I don’t know what any of this means, and at this point it all seems so surreal and strange that I’m still trying to figure out if it even happened at all.”
(4:27:23 AM) CC: At the name Ireko I jump slightly, spilling a drop of tea on the table. “Ireko? Is that the name you heard?” The teacup clatters against the glass top as I set it down unsteadily. “I… I’d better tell you what happened my first day. It’s important, and it can’t be a coincidence that we both heard the same name. I think I… saw Ireko.”
(4:27:59 AM) CC: I take a moment to calm myself and head into the kitchen to find a towel. Back at the living room, I clean up the spill and take a deep breath before launching into my own story.
(4:29:19 AM) MaggotMaster: “G-go on” I mutter simply, noticeably more nervous than before
(4:31:16 AM) CC: “After school the first day I’d already heard about some strange… incidents but I wasn’t thinking about them except as rumors. I invited a classmate, Gengakki Neiro-san, to a frozen yogurt stand that had just opened on a street nearby. We were just talking about school when suddenly everything… paused.”
(4:35:02 AM) CC: My eyes flick to the television. “It was just like when a movie is frozen. Everything completely still. Except both of us, we could still move. I didn’t know what to do at first, but then across the street we saw something else moving. It wasn’t a person though. Maybe it wasn’t even an animal. It looked like an origami bird, flattened completely, but it was alive somehow. It spoke to us and told us stranger things were going to happen, that they were caused by a… ‘nightmare’ or something.” I’m at a loss for words explaining the unfamilar term. “But that thing was Ireko. It came and spoke to us. And then the world sped up again and there was a traffic accident… I wasn’t even sure if it was real. If Gengakki-san wasn’t there I would have thought I was going crazy.”
(4:36:00 AM) CC: I let out a deep breath. “That bird thing… must be Ireko. And it told us there is something worse…”
(4:36:47 AM) CC: ((Would you prefer for this to happen before or after I met Hikaru and know some stuff about magical girls?))
(4:38:54 AM) MaggotMaster: ((Hmm. I think “You knowing things” might be better from a story telling standpoint, and I also can get to actually doing things sooner without having to occupy my next action learning about megucas. Yeah actually yes it’s better if you know and tell me about it))
(4:39:40 AM) CC: ((OK. gimme a sec then))
(4:43:09 AM) CC: I catch my breath for a moment and then continue. “That wasn’t even the weirdest thing that happened though. Later I met a sempai who seemed to know a lot about what was going on and she met me in the library when there was nobody around.”
(4:45:00 AM) CC: “I know it sounds crazy, but she knew all about Ireko and the strange things happening. And then uh… she turned into a magical girl. With a beautiful costume and everything!” I can’t even believe that I said that, but I seem excited at the same time. “It was really cool! She said that she’s been fighting the youma that cause these weird happenings. It’s like something out of a manga really…”
(4:51:17 AM) MaggotMaster: I simply look at Izumi, I’m pretty sure my expression right is positively dumbfounded at this moment, I thought my tale was hard to believe but this certainly tops it, “a-are you serious?”, I’m feeling very skeptical of a sudden, even though I myself have had some very, very strange things happening to me recently. “A magical girl..? magic? I, uh” I try my best to express my confusion without seeming rude “When did this happen?” can what she’s telling me be true? it seems to fit very well with my own story, but the idea of there being such things as magic in this world makes me shiver, and yet the recent events make it clear that something beyond rational understanding has been happening. Ireko is calling. The world is a cipher. Magical Girls? Ireko is calling. The sudden burst of incredible clarity the other evening. Could it have been magic? “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to seem skeptical, but, but” I stutter “This is just too much for me to comprehend right now, I, when did this happen to you?” I repeat my question
(4:53:52 AM) MaggotMaster: (magic all up in this bitch)
(4:55:25 AM) CC: I make a little tent with my fingers. This sounds pretty weird, even for me, so I can’t blame her. “Well… it was the first day of school, so just yesterday. Last evening.” I sigh. “Also, Kasuga-san, that is, the magical girl – she said that there would be people who had magical potential, and that these would be the people that strange things would happen to. That Ireko would appear before… So I guess that means you!” I point my finger at Zaragoza-san.
(4:59:05 AM) CC: (now you call the police and ask that they take me to the hospital and be institutionalized)
(5:06:31 AM) MaggotMaster: “M-me? magical potential?” I’m genuinely trying to believe Izumi-san, she’s one of the closest people to me, but the possibility of this all being true makes me incredibly uncomfortable “I, I don’t really know what to say, is there a way I can meet this girl? or find out more about… about Ireko? I’m sorry Izumi, I know you wouldn’t lie to me, but all of this is so strange that I’m having a hard time accepting that it’s most likely true. It’s, it’s like, something completely outside the bounds of what one would normally expect to happen, like, if what you’re telling me is true there exists a whole world completely beyond normal human understanding and its, its like, I don’t know, maddening to even consider the implications of it all.” I stop talking, I’m too nervous and having an incredibly hard time considering the possibility of there being magic and not only that, but me actually being directly related to it, in some unfathomable manner. “Would you, uh, would you still like to study, ah, what was it, trigonometry? I need a while to think about this, I’m sorry”
(5:11:25 AM) CC: “Yeah, uh.” I feel bad for forcing this all out in to the open so suddenly. Of course it would make anyone uncomfortable! “If it makes you feel better, I keep thinking I’ll suddenly wake up and this will all be a dream. Maybe nothing will happen for the next few days and everyone will forget all about this!” I stare at my reflection in the glass. “I don’t think I could forget the way the sky looked when the world froze yesterday though… it was so alien. Like it was filled with angry static.” I suddenly look up. “But yeah! Trigonometry!! It’s really hard for me you know, I appreciate you coming over to help me!”
(5:11:43 AM) CC: There is a thud as I drop the classroom textbook on the table and open it to the first chapter.
(5:15:55 AM) MaggotMaster: I proceed to attempt to relax a bit, yes, trigonometry, trigonometry indeed, “Alright, I’ll try to help you with the contents passed recently in class, it’s probably better if we stop thinking about this for a while no?” I turn around to grab my schoolbag, there’s a small plastic case inside that I need right now. Though I usually don’t wear them, I have a pair of reading glasses I use whenever I study or have to do heavy reading, so I take them out of their case, put them on, and prepare for to start pretending I’m a teacher, a dynamic that by this point I’m pretty used to, and which will keep my mind away, for the time being, of such crazy things as “magic”.
(5:16:03 AM) MaggotMaster: ((i think we’re pretty much done now??))